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Pandemics aren’t a ton of fun.

The current one has caused economic chaos, political instability and no shortage of anxiety, planet-wide. For musicians and for those who promote live music, however, it’s been really, really — really — bad.

For months, musicians haven’t been able to make a living playing gigs — because, in the era of illegal downloading and low-return streaming, gigging is how most of them keep the lights on. Around 75% of their income is derived from live shows.

Meanwhile, the clubs and bars and arenas that offer shows haven’t been able to do so for 20 months, give or take. The World Economic Forum estimates that the music industry is worth around $50 billion annually — and half that figure, from live shows, simply evaporated when COVID-19 commenced upending our lives.

So, for Calgary punk rock legends Chixdiggit — and for the legendary Bovine Sex Club in Toronto, Canada’s own CBGB — their joint return, this past weekend, was really, really (really) good. It was the 30th anniversary of both the club and the band, and the Bovine was packed — with verified, fully-vaccinated punk rock fans.

Before taking to the Bovine’s stage, Chixdiggit — KJ Jansen (guitar and vocals), Billy Dixon (guitar), Tyler Pickering (drums) and Rob Gruszecki (bass) — gathered in the storied apartment of club owner Daryl Fine, and talked about their first big shows in two years.

“Alberta didn’t really have lockdown, but you guys (in Ontario) had a lockdown,” notes Jansen, the band’s frontman. “Not to get political, but we had a premier that kind of made us jealous of Ontario’s premier.”

Even so, the decision to play the 30th anniversary shows didn’t happen overnight, says Jansen, because the band, and the Bovine, wanted to do them in the right way. The safe way. At the Bovine on the weekend — where Yours Screwly was naturally in attendance, being a bit of a Calgary punk myself — I witnessed more security and screening than I’ve experienced anywhere else.

“The original 30th anniversary party was going to be 40 people in seats, sitting down,” says Fine, the club’s longtime owner, and the guy with one of the biggest Rolodexes in rock’n’roll. “It would have been less of a celebration. Conveniently, (Doug) Ford has opened us up and allowed us to be full capacity.”

Even with all the precautions they’re taking, Hansen and Fine agree that it was essential that Chixdiggit’s shows were hale, hearty and healthy. Says Fine: “We have a 100% protocol for vaccine passports. We’re checking everyone at the door, plus the Bovine has a 100% staff mandate for two vaccines. We’re not too nervous. And the fact that venues and bars are complying is helping Ontario succeed in lowering the case rate.”

“And that was a big part of Chixdiggit wanting to come out here,” says Hansen. “Alberta’s pandemic was handled very differently. When we looked at Ontario’s vaccination rate compared to Alberta, I thought, holy s***, that sounds like a paradise. So, if we were going to come back and play a show, we wanted to do it at the Bovine in Ontario.”

And what a show it was. Chixdiggit reminded all in attendance why they are considered Canada’s best-ever punk band. Their tunes — about girls, growing up and hockey — are catchier than a drawer full of fish hooks. And, at the Bovine over the weekend, they had the place rockin’ like it hasn’t in a long, long time.

“We want to put on a great show,” concludes Hansen, “and we want to keep everyone safe.”

And they did, on both counts.

— Warren Kinsella, who is older than dirt, was a member of Calgary’s first punk band, the Hot Nasties, and we’re not sure why we let him in here.

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How can you tell that Justin Trudeau is lying to you?

We know, we know: when his lips are moving. Old joke.

But there’s a more recent example of Trudeaupian dishonesty — one that took place in real time, in real life. And, even coming from the sophists who make up Trudeau’s cabal, it was pretty shocking.

On Friday night — not during the day, but “Friday night,” as CBC News , no less, reported — word came that the Trudeau government had quietly filed what is called a Notice of Appeal. It read as follows:

“Canada acknowledges the finding of systemic discrimination and does not oppose the general principle that compensation to First Nations individuals who experienced pain and suffering as a result of government misconduct should be provided.

“Awarding compensation to individuals in the manner ordered by the Tribunal, however, was inconsistent with the nature of the complaint, the evidence, past jurisprudence, and the Canadian Human Rights Act.”

There’s a fair bit of legalese, there. What’s it about?

Well, it’s about a 2019 decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, ordering Ottawa to compensate Indigenous children for denying them government services.

What’s it mean? It means the Government of Canada wants to overturn the tribunal’s decision. Period.

But that’s not the impression the Trudeau government wants to give you. Here’s what they want you to think. They issued an official statement and everything.

“Today, the Government of Canada and the parties, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and Assembly of First Nations, are announcing that we have agreed to sit down immediately and work towards reaching a global resolution by December 2021 on outstanding issues that have been the subject of litigation.”

Some in the media immediately fell for it, hook, line and sinker. CBC’s Chief Political Correspondent, Rosemary Barton, promptly tweeted this:

“All sides have agreed to a pause in legal action. All parties will continue to negotiate to reach a global settlement. They have until December. The appeal buys all sides time to reach that agreement.”

Gotcha.

So, back to the very first question: how can you tell the Trudeau government is lying to you?

Five ways.

• They issued statement late on a Friday. In political parlance, that’s known as “taking out the garbage.“ When you’ve got something bad to say, you say it late on a Friday, when you know fewer people are paying attention. When you are playing fast and loose with the truth, you don’t want anyone paying attention.

• Their lead spokesperson is in Europe. You know: that Justin Trudeau guy. Purely coincidently, we’re sure, Trudeau was literally out of the country, junketing around Europe and thereby being very difficult to reach. He left the appeal revelation to a couple minor Liberal politicians back in Canada on, as noted, a Friday night.

• They pretend settlement discussions are big news — except settlements can happen at any time. Forgive me for being a lawyer and everything, but settlement was possible at any moment before now. You can have settlement discussions before a case begins. You can have settlement discussions when the trial is underway. You can have settlement discussions when a case is before a jury. You can even have settlement discussions after a verdict is reached. Contrary to what Barton tweeted, no settlement discussions were “continuing.“ What was “continuing” was Trudeau’s multi-million-dollar scheming to deny Indigenous children justice.

• They appeal and pretend it’s not an appeal. Because, you know, that’s what the Trudeau government did. They literally researched the appeal. They wrote the appeal. They typed up the appeal. They filed the appeal in the court registry — and even got an official stamp on the front of it. When it looks like an appeal, and is filed as an appeal, it’s an appeal.

• Their lips are moving. Old joke, yes, and repetitive. But it is no less true for that. The Trudeau regime has taken dishonesty to an entirely new realm. In the B.S. Olympics, they are consistent gold medallists. They are without equal.

Because they are lying to you, again. More particularly, they are lying to thousands of Indigenous children who they continue to fight in court.

It all resembles what Donald Trump likes to call “the big lie.”

Because, if you’ve decided to tell one, make it a whopper.

— Kinsella was Jean Chretien’s Special Assistant

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Dear World:

Justin Trudeau here. Remember me?

You were in love with me once. You put me on the cover of Rolling Stone. The Washington Post once called me “the anti-Trump.” The Christian Science Monitor wondered if I was “Canada’s JFK.” USA Today wrote that I had “charm, good looks, and progressive policies on feminism and diversity.”

Well, that was then and this is now, I guess.

I won’t bother to repeat some of the things you say about me now, World. They’re not very nice.

I mean, sure, my feminism took a bit of hit when, um, it was alleged that I groped a female reporter. But I repeat what I told her: I wouldn’t have done so if she had told me she was a writer for a national newspaper!

And, OK, Donald Trump and I both arguably obstructed justice — him for cronies, and me for a Liberal party donor being prosecuted for corruption. Sure. But he was impeached, and I wasn’t!

And, yes, my diversity credentials aren’t what they used to be. Lying about where I was on the day I set aside for Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation — and instead jetting off to a surfer’s beach in Tofino, and lounging at an $18-million mansion — wasn’t so progressive, I suppose. But I expressed “regret”! Isn’t that enough, World?

Anyway, World, we are BFFs no more. We aren’t besties like we used to be. I acknowledge that, and know who is to blame.

You, World. You are to blame. I’m the same guy — same chiselled jaw, same flowing locks. It’s you who has changed, World.

And I am serving my revenge, um, hot, World. My revenge is Melanie Joly.

You don’t know much about Melanie, now, but I guarantee you will, soon enough. She’s going to leave an impression on you, and you’re not going to like it.

Here’s a sampling of Melanie Joly’s gravest hits, World. Not one of these is made up.

Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations. Countries only turn 150 once — but Melanie, as minister responsible, turned ours into an unmitigated fiasco. Indigenous youth protested it, and citizens hated it, and even wrote to me about it. A sampling: “I have never seen such a poor, chaotic display. Shame on you Ottawa.” And: “Please, (Minister Joly), I beg you to step out of your protective shell and acknowledge what a mess Canada Day was and take some responsibility for it.” And: “Time for you to resign!” Ouch.

The Netflix fiasco. Melanie gifted the streaming giant tax-free status for a piddling amount of investment in Canada’s cultural sector — including in her home province, Quebec. The media weren’t impressed. The Globe and Mail said Melanie’s “fall from grace has been swift and merciless, sped by her maladroit attempts to sell a deal with Netflix.” The National Post noted that she had been “savaged in Quebec media, artistic and political circles.” And her hometown paper, the Journal de Montreal, said she sounds “like a living answering machine having a nervous breakdown.” Double ouch.

Ottawa Holocaust Monument.Melanie commissioned one, but she forgot something. The Washington Post noticed: “(Joly) forgot to mention Jews on the new Holocaust monument dedication plaque.” Oops.

Parliament Hill hockey rink. Melanie had a rink built on Parliament Hill, which was nice. Not nice: The rink (a) prohibited the playing of hockey; (b) was going to be in existence for less than a month; and (c) was a block from the biggest skating rink in the world, the Rideau Canal. Oh, and this, from the Toronto Star: “The rink is budgeted to cost about $215,385 per day that it’s open.” That worked out to about $300 per skater. Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Anyway, you get the picture, World. If you’re not nice to me anymore, I’m not going to be nice to you. So, I give you Melanie Joly, the worst cabinet minister in the history of Canada.

Take that, World.

Sincerely,

Justin

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Jean Chretien is a winner at politics — and at putting together a cabinet, too.

Consider this: During his 40-year political career, he never lost an election. With three back-to-back majorities, he is the winningest prime minister in modern times.

He beat Quebec separatism, twice. He brought home the Constitution and gave us a Charter of Rights. He held every major portfolio in the governments of Mike Pearson and Pierre Trudeau.

He was, and remains, consulted by international leaders, U.S. presidents, and Her Majesty the Queen.

And when he left active politics in 2003 — on his own terms, not because anyone pushed him out — his approval rating remained above 60%.

Chretien is a winner.

(And, sure, I’m biased. I was his special assistant and then, later, his friend. I would take a bullet for him.)

But objectively, if you were putting together a government — if you were putting together a cabinet, or putting together some contentious policy proposal — wouldn’t you pick up the phone to seek his advice?

He doesn’t charge for it. He’s willing to give free advice to any prime minister who gives him a ring.

Justin Trudeau — whose legacy is now proven to include scandal and political failure — needed to consult with Jean Chretien. But did he do that enough?

Well, Trudeau rolls out his new cabinet Tuesday morning. And Chretien — reached in Montreal when promoting the second volume of his new book, My Stories, My Times — doesn’t reveal if he was consulted on that new cabinet.https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Cz8aRnk5gE?embed_config={%27relatedChannels%27:%20[],%27autonav%27:true}&autoplay=0&playsinline=1&enablejsapi=1

But, exclusively, Chretien has given the Toronto Sun some excerpts from the new book about how to build a cabinet. Check this one out, which tells for the first time how Paul Martin only became finance minister at the last possible moment:

“When we won the election on Oct. 25, 1993, I had to form a cabinet. What was I going to do with my two main adversaries for the party leadership, Paul Martin and Sheila Copps? It was the strategy of Lincoln, who did not lack for opponents in his own camp when he became president of the United States, that inspired me in forming my cabinet. He had given them the greatest possible responsibilities.  

With Copps, it was easy: I named her deputy prime minister and minister of the environment, which delighted her. With Martin, it was much more complicated. I told him that I wanted him to be my finance minister, because I believed that there was no problem more important than the deficit, the national debt, the unemployment rate, and the high interest rates.

He replied that that post was the graveyard of politicians, and he wanted to become the new C.D. Howe, the all-powerful minister of industry and commerce under Prime Minister Louis  St.  Laurent.  I  retorted that John Turner and I had been finance minister before becoming party leader and prime minister. After a number of exchanges, he told me clearly that he would not accept finance, but that he’d be happy with industry and commerce. Given this refusal, I offered John Manley the post of finance minister, which he accepted. Forty-eight hours before the swearing-in, Martin called me to say that he’d changed his mind and would finally agree to be finance minister. It’s clear that had I not insisted, he would never have known all the glory that this post brought him. I had to call John Manley back. He’d been finance minister for only 48  hours, but he would have the position again later on.”

That anecdote provides Justin Trudeau with the best advice of all: don’t play favourites. Don’t cater to big egos. Don’t blink.

Will Justin Trudeau take the advice? We may find out Tuesday morning.

— Kinsella was Chretien’s special assistant

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Story here. Key bits here:

“Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would have been “better served” if he sought guidance from his party’s elder statesmen, but that the current government has failed to reach out to him for advice.

“I’m not there, but sometimes I thought that, you know, they would have been better served if they would have looked to have older, experienced people with them,” Chrétien said in an interview airing on Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday. 

Chrétien said he isn’t passing judgment on the current Liberal government.

But, in a forthcoming book, he wrote that while “Trudeau and his team aspire to be reformists on a grand scale … their lack of experience for succeeding in that goal is more and more apparent.”

Asked about that remark by CBC’s chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton, Chrétien said the current crop of Liberals in Ottawa “don’t consult me,” and that he is fine with that.

“I’m not there. It’s not my responsibility,” he said.

Chrétien also noted in his book that rejecting politicians, and the politics of the past, are part of the Trudeau Liberals’ identity. 

“They say to whoever wants to hear that one of their great successes is in having sidelined the old guard,” he wrote in My Stories, My Times, Vol. 2, coming out on Tuesday. 

The former prime minister said that the reason he believes in the value of leaning on the previous generation’s experience is because he is a product of that kind of thinking.

…Chretien, who oversaw three majority governments between 1993 and 2003, said, as a person who likes brokering deals and compromises, he would “have enjoyed having [a minority government], in a way.”

“I preferred to have a majority government and the people of Canada wanted to give me a majority government, So what can I say?”

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Hypocrite.

Calling somebody a hypocrite isn’t anything new. In politics, just about anywhere, hypocrisy is the coin of the realm. Everyone in public life seems to practice it.

But the regime of Justin Trudeau is a special case, isn’t it? They have taken hypocrisy to an entirely new level.

They have reached hypocritical heights that have heretofore never been reached. They are in the actual pantheon of hypocrites, for eternity.

I don’t mean to pick on her, even though God knows she deserves it. But Justin Trudeau’s minister of health, Patty Hajdu, is the most recent and most notorious example of a Trudeau cabinet minister who is unashamedly, undeniably hypocritical. It is almost like she relishes it. That it is part of her job description.

Some time ago, she lectured Canadians about wearing masks during the pandemic. Shortly thereafter, she was photographed laughing in a private airport lounge. Maskless.

She extolled the virtues of social distancing, and insisted that Canadians do likewise. She was then seen in the aforementioned private airport lounge, giggling close-up with other well-to-do executive types.

Most recently, following an unwanted and unnecessary election — in which her boss travelled nonstop for more than a month — she demanded that Canadians not travel themselves. With a straight face. She did that.

Do one thing, say another. Talk the talk, but never walk the talk. Preach something, practice something else.

That is what Patty Hajdu does, during the biggest public health crisis Canada has faced in a century. At precisely the moment when it was critical that Canadians receive clear, factual and persuasive health information from their federal minister of health, we were given a former graphic designer who is both incoherent and incompetent.

We were given Patty Hajdu who — over and over and over – says one thing and does another. Who is a hypocrite of the highest order.

But can we really blame her? Can we really get angry with Patty Hajdu, when we consider who her boss is?

Justin Trudeau, who repeatedly proclaimed that he was a feminist, and who covered up the fact that he had been accused of groping a female reporter?

Justin Trudeau, who, when he became Liberal leader in 2013, solemnly pledged to lead an ethical government — and then would go on to become the first sitting prime minister to be found guilty of violating federal ethics laws not once, but twice?

Justin Trudeau, who called for reconciliation with Indigenous people — and then defamed and exiled a proud Indigenous leader, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who refused to obstruct justice for a donor to Trudeau’s party?

Who promised to end boil water advisories for Indigenous people — and has done nothing of the sort? Who promised to clean up environmental disasters in Indigenous communities — and who then mocked a woman who drew attention to mercury poisoning at the Grassy Narrows reserve?

Who said he favoured Reconciliation and Truth for Indigenous People — and then bald-faced lied about where he was on the very day dedicated to reconciliation and truth?

So, in a sad and pathetic way, it’s kind of hard to get mad at Patty Hajdu. She is simply following the example that has been set, over and over, by her boss. By Justin Trudeau.

Like you, I despise hypocrites. But unlike you, perhaps, I’ve spent a lot of time working in politics. So I’ve learned to accept that politics often attracts people who are rank hypocrites.

But I swear to God: Justin Trudeau and Patty Hajdu and their ilk are the biggest bunch of hypocrites I’ve ever seen. Ever.

And by voting for them, in 2019 and 2021, too many Canadians are saying that they are OK with hypocrisy.

And that is the worst, and most hypocritical, thing of all.

— Warren Kinsella was Jean Chretien’s Special Assistant

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